Chapter 82: Unveiling Secrets

I had learned basic first aid when I was in the military, but back then we had triangular bandages and sterile dressings. Right now, I had nothing at all, and tearing a strip of fabric off my clothes was out of the question.

After all, we had just crawled out of a tomb, and we were all filthy. If I had hastily bandaged Zhao Shuihe's wound under these conditions, it would only have caused an infection—that would be doing her harm instead of good!

I gave an awkward laugh and said, "Can we wait until we get back to bandage it? It's really not very convenient right now!"

"No way!" Hearing this, Zhao Shuihe's childish temper flared up. With eyes welling up with tears, she barked at me, "You said you'd take care of it, so you have to see it through to the end! Otherwise, I'm going to tell my cousin! I'll make everyone in Suzizuo hold a grudge against you! I'll put you on the blacklist!"

Good grief! That was a steep price to pay.

It seemed that given Zhao Shuihe's persistence, I had no choice but to treat her wound.

Feeling utterly helpless, I let out a sigh, took Zhao Shuihe's hand, swallowed hard, and leaned forward to lick straight at her wound with the tip of my tongue.

Zhao Shuihe stared right into my eyes, her gaze instantly freezing.

To be honest, I only used the tip of my tongue to touch her slightly bloody wound—just once! The very next second, Zhao Shuihe showed no mercy and slapped me right across the face!

A burning, stinging pain!

"You pervert!" After hitting me, Zhao Shuihe quickly pulled her hand back, curled herself into a ball, and spat out, "You dare take advantage of your great-grandmother?! Have you no shame?!"

To be entirely fair, Zhao Shuihe's slap was much more vicious than a cat's scratch. It was so ruthless that five distinct, bright red claw marks immediately appeared on my cheek, and if you looked closely enough, you could probably even make out her fingerprints.

Yet I truly wasn't acting like a pervert! I genuinely just wanted to help her treat the wound.

Amidst this extraordinarily awkward silence, Lei Ren suddenly stepped forward. He patted Zhao Shuihe on the shoulder to smooth things over for me and said, "Shuiche, Ah Tian didn't mean it that way! He was just trying to use the 'jade dew and golden liquid' to disinfect it for you!"

Lei Ren's words were clearly meant to bail me out of trouble, and what he said happened to coincide with my own thoughts.

I really only wanted to use my saliva to disinfect Zhao Shuihe's wound.

Therefore, I chimed in, "He's right. My old squad leader once told me that human saliva is the best disinfectant; putting it on a wound promotes healing. What's more, I've even witnessed a living example of this myself!"

"An example?" Zhao Shuihe asked skeptically. "You've seen wounds healed with a tongue?"

I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts, then told her, "I saw it once back when we were stationed in the mountainous regions of Guizhou."

In those days, wild boars would frequently break into our platoon's vegetable patch to steal crops. Those pigs were quite clever—neither scarecrows nor wooden fences worked; they couldn't scare them off at all.

Eventually, our deputy platoon commander lost his temper and ordered the cooking squad to pull out the "big guns," installing massive amounts of military barbed wire around the perimeter of the vegetable garden.

That kind of barbed wire was extremely vicious, originally designed as anti-personnel wire. It was studded with triangular, barbed hooks. If an ordinary person grabbed a handful, it could strip a layer of skin right off your hand. Even when we were setting it up, we had to wear double-layered welding gloves to avoid being punctured.

Naturally, the pigs stopped coming after that. Moreover, on that very night, we managed to catch a massive boar weighing four to five hundred catties.

I remember when we first caught that male boar, it possessed incredible strength, actually using brute force to tear the barbed wire apart piece by piece. But because of that, the beast ended up covered in injuries, even snapping one of its tusks in half. Due to excessive blood loss, it became completely unable to stand.

Catching a wild boar naturally got everyone very excited; all hundred-odd men in the platoon wanted to cook up a special feast using the animal, but the platoon leader and the old squad leader wouldn't allow it.

They told us that wild boars were state-protected animals, and furthermore, this particular one was the alpha boar. Keeping it alive would actually make the rest of the sounder much more docile.

Therefore, the old squad leader had Zhao Hong lock the wild boar inside the pigpen to nurse it back to health.

At the time, I wasn't very satisfied with the squad leader's arrangement, so I muttered, "Squad leader, this pig is already on its last breath. Even if you keep it alive, it might not survive another two days."

To this, the squad leader only responded with a mysterious smile, telling me that the wild boar had friends who would heal its wounds.

At first, I didn't understand what he meant, but an accidental trip out in the middle of the night explained everything.

That night, as I went to the latrine and walked past the pigpen, I suddenly heard a strange sound coming from inside the boar's enclosure.

The sound was very sharp, piercing, almost like a young girl laughing?!

Instantly, all sleepiness vanished, and my entire body felt tense and uneasy.

Was a young girl really in a pigpen giggling with a pig?

With that thought in my head, how could I possibly sleep? Besides, the old squad leader had told me earlier, "The wild boar has friends who will heal its wounds."

Could its friend possibly be a young girl, or some sort of female spirit?

Driven by intense curiosity, I held my breath, focusing every ounce of my concentration, and crept toward the wild boar's pen at the slowest speed I could possibly manage.

I poked my head over the edge and looked down at the scene unfolding inside.

In an instant, I was utterly shocked.

Because I saw that right over the wild boar's wound, there was the head of a stunningly beautiful woman, moving back and forth against the pig's injury.

In the moonlight, I swear I could only see a human head! Short blue hair and a pale complexion, bobbing up and down and constantly gliding back and forth across the boar's body. The wild boar had its eyes half-closed, looking as though it felt quite comfortable.

Because the sight was simply too bizarre, I instinctively blurted out, "What the heck?!"

As soon as those words left my mouth, both the wild boar and the woman's head on its back whipped around toward my direction.

Immediately afterward, the wild boar let out a long roar, and the woman's head resting on its back vanished completely in the blink of an eye.

In my astonishment, I watched as that blue-haired woman's head rapidly contracted and transformed. A moment later, it turned into a bird I had never seen before, fluttering its pale blue wings and soaring straight up into the sky, leaving behind a prolonged trail of sharp, laughter-like birdsong.

The next day, I told my squad leader about the bizarre sight I had witnessed.

My squad leader explained that the bird I saw last night was called a "Qianzhen Sparrow," which legend says is formed from the resentment of ancient beauties. Its feathers are emerald blue, and when it spreads its wings, it strikingly resembles the face of a blue-haired, enchanting beauty.

That species of bird survives by eating parasites living on the bodies of large animals. Furthermore, they have fixed clients; they share a symbiotic relationship with the giant wild boars deep in these mountains.

In everyday life, the Qianzhen Sparrows live off the parasites on the wild boar's body. If a wild boar gets injured, they will stay by its side, using their own saliva to seal and bind the wound while eating the parasites attracted by the scent of blood to fill their bellies.

Concluding my story, I told Zhao Shuihe, "And that's why, nourished by the saliva of those birds, the wild boar's wounds healed exceptionally fast! Human saliva possesses similar properties, you know."

Looking half-convinced, Zhao Shuihe interrogated me, "Is what you're saying true? Don't trick me."

With a mischievous gleam in my eye, I said, "Of course it's true! If you don't believe me, I'll keep licking it for you, and then you'll see just how effective it is!"